


what the sun didn't burn

by ndnickerson



Series: Rain on a Tin Roof [10]
Category: Nancy Drew - Keene
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:22:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned deals with his demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starts before Rain on a Tin Roof and ends after Max the Cat.

He had dreamt of her every night, at first. In the unsure months he had dreamt about other things, of suddenly being called to war, of monotonous school projects, of becoming the youngest president in history, of being late for class, of spraining his ankle, of breaking his arm, and she was there sometimes, watchful, quiet, vague.

Then he had known. Then it was official, that Nancy had left him, that this wasn't just one of their periodic fights and reconciliations. He didn't call, and didn't call, and didn't call, and then he couldn't call, because it would have been ludicrous, because saying _so I heard through five degrees of separation that you're expecting a baby girl_ would have been like suddenly speaking perfect Farsi.

He had begun to hate her, then, and the hate didn't stop. The hate merely grew, and waited, crouching in the light, until he was on the first half of his fourth drink, and then it suddenly became appropriate to snarl her name and ignore the sighs of everyone around him.

It took him far too long to get laid.

All his brothers in the fraternity swore it would be best. Never say her name again, find some girl and fuck her a few times, and then, it would be like a dream. A bad dream, a persistent dream, because he couldn't walk away from four years with no scars, no one said he would ever be able to do that, but at least he would be walking away. And he still dreamt of her, and he didn't talk about it, and then the night of one party he became fantastically, beautifully, splendidly drunk, and there were blurry pictures of him later dancing on the pool table, but what he remembered most about that night was fumbling in his bedside drawer, his teeth digging into something yielding, something with a pulse, and the voice in his head was hard and bitter as it said _this is it, this is it, finally, I won't think about her again, I won't, it'll all be over._

His first time was terrible, frantic, the lights were still on and the rhythm of her hips never quite matched his and he came too early, leaving the oval of his thumb bruised into her breast, and after he couldn't look into her eyes. He threw the condom away and shuffled across the floor, flipping the lights out on his way back to bed, and she was just the suggestion of a pale arm between her cheek and the pillow. He brushed her panties off the bed and slid in beside her, and she moved away immediately, not saying anything. She had been entirely silent, really, since the second he'd unlocked his bedroom door and motioned her inside, joined at the mouth and hips, and if he had said anything it would have begun with a single name, a name that wasn't hers, that was as far from hers as he had been able to find.

_Nancy._

But it didn't. She was quiet when she slept and he still couldn't look at her.

Then his eyes jerked open, and he couldn't figure out why, in the dark, until he heard the chuckle.

"Hey."

"Hey," Ned replied, pushing himself up, and he was grinning even as his heart sank, because Nancy stood there in the doorway, her hand resting lightly on the frame, and she looked as beautiful as she had ever been. "I thought you were...?"

He made a vague motion, which she answered with another burst of the same melodious laughter. She took another step toward him, her eyebrow raised.

"That? Oh, Ned... we went undercover. You know we do that sometimes."

"But the papers said...?"

"The papers were wrong. We just needed to make them _think_ we were getting married. It's all a show." She took another step toward him, her eyes dancing, her hair shining in the light of a perfect summer afternoon. She was almost to the bed, and he knew without looking that he was alone there, that all his other life had been a dream.

"I missed you," he sighed, ashamed.

"I missed you too," she said. "I would have told you, if there had been time, I swear."

"The baby?"

She shook her head. "No. No baby. But it sure looked good, didn't it?"

She had reached the bed, and he pulled the covers back, waiting for her to join him. "It did look good," he said, and he felt sick. He had believed it, all of it, and she would never have done this to him. She loved him. She had always loved him. "Don't ever do anything like that again, okay?"

She was close enough to touch, now, and he closed his eyes, infinitely tired, reaching for her. Everything was fine. Everything would be fine now.

Then he opened his eyes and his head was sick and filled with liquid nausea, and his sheets still smelled of sex, not his alone but his mingled with that of the girl whose name he couldn't (and, after that night, never again did) remember, but the bed was empty beside him, his door was closed and locked in the dark and the bass was still pounding downstairs.

He stumbled to the bathroom and it all came up again, all of it, a cloudy blur of sickly-sweet liquid that burned all the way up, and while he waited, his forehead beading in sudden cool sweat, he saw that the condom was still in the trash, that at least that much of the night hadn't been a dream. That part.

He hated himself for wishing that he could believe the lie just a moment longer, instead.

\--

It didn't end the second time, the third time, the tenth time. He didn't dream of her every time, when he was passed out after, and he had been dating one particularly beautiful girl for three months, fucking her every chance he had, when they were at a party at her sorority house and a song came on the radio that he hadn't heard in nearly a year. His heart closed hard like a fist in his chest and he made some mumbled excuse before he shoved through the crowd, all the way outside, still hearing the song, and he wanted to stop thinking her name but he couldn't. The hate swelled in him, the hate was perfect, until it forced tears into his eyes, until he was nearly sick with rage and the memory of Nancy's laugh when she had turned and wriggled her hips against his, dancing to that same song, barefoot on the worn carpet in the downstairs hall, and it had been_perfect._

He screamed against his shaking palm, only once. When the girl found him, this girl who never wore a ponytail and whose jeans were all neatly pressed and whose breasts had been a present for her eighteenth birthday, he led her to the shadows on the back porch and fucked her there, her back slamming against the wall of the house, and then broke up with her answering machine the next day.

The day of his graduation, his parents were there, and he beat them home, having managed to just avoid an enormous wreck on the interstate but leaving them in the traffic jam created in its wake. He shrugged his duffel bag onto the floor in his room, and caught the angle of sunlight across his bedspread, and the smell of his room, closed up for so long, and he remembered that weekend when he was seventeen and she sixteen, and his parents had gone for a visit to his aunt and uncle, and they had been alone for the afternoon, and she had gone along shyly enough when he had invited her to see his bedroom.

"Tell me you love me," she had whispered against his neck after they had made their innocent way to his bed and sprawled out above the covers, her every movement like an answered prayer. He had wrestled her shirt off, but at those words he had been speechless, his lips brushing the crown of her head.

"I love you."

"Tell me you'll never love anyone else," she whispered, but the smile wasn't in her voice anymore, it was deadly serious, almost shaking. "Tell me I'm the only one."

"You are," he breathed. "You're the only one I'll ever love."

Sometimes when he woke in the middle of the night, his cock already thick and hard, pressing against the blanket, when he kicked the sheets away and jacked off all he could remember was that afternoon and the look on her face and the curve of her breasts above the edges of her bra, and when he would come his face would already be wet, his cheeks slick with tears. He hated himself for it, hated her, and wished that every time was the last, but was never surprised when it wasn't.

Every time he jacked off, he thought of her, and remembered saying those words, promising he would never love anyone else. He felt sick and angry, and then it didn't matter so much, because at his first job after college he found a girl who could have passed for her sister, her hair long and red-gold, and she was the first girl he ever made come, during that horrible bleak time, the beginning of the rest of his life. Other girls, named and nameless, had lied to him, told him it had been the best sex they'd ever had, that he was the best fuck they'd ever had, but he knew better, he knew how--

_Nancy_

\--how she had felt when she was gasping, writhing against his touch, the sudden indescribable spasm of her face when he felt the answering clench between her thighs. When the redhead came, the redhead he could never quite bring himself to love except during those moments when they were slamming against each other and he could close his eyes and remember someone else and love her instead, when she came the rising crescendo of her groans reached the edge of breath and her nails bit into his sides.

He hated seeing the marks after. He hated seeing any sign of her once she left his apartment. He hated hearing her voice on his answering machine.

But he loved fucking her, because when he fucked her he forgot the guilt he was supposed to feel, the shame of knowing that she made him hard only because when he saw her from the corner of his eye, he remembered the one he hated.

The hate was supposed to fade. He was supposed to be apathetic now. He wasn't supposed to fly into a rage when he saw the birth announcement in the newspaper, but he did; he wasn't supposed to feel his heart in his throat at every mention of Carson Drew in the Chicago paper, but he did. He started avoiding the newspaper, but soon he found that the downside of dating, falling for, and then having his heart broken by the daughter of the state's most prominent and highly respected criminal defense lawyer, was that he would never be allowed to forget.

Then one day he grew tired of trying, months after the redhead had broken up with him and he had moved on to an icy-eyed brunette. In the train station he passed the cousins, the other half of their four, their heads bent close together, cheeks flushed from the cold, giggling about something. Their names blended together when he thought them, into one senseless word, Bess-and-George, and they passed by without seeing him, and he canceled his date that night and sat in front of the television in his boxer shorts, pouring glass after glass of scotch until the bottle was finished, thinking of a black dress and a broom closet and the texture of Nancy's nipple against his tongue, thinking of a lavender dress and an abandoned hotel room and the attic of Wendy's beach house and the barest press of his fingers between her thighs, the loose clasp of her fist around his cock, and the reluctance when they had finally pulled apart.

_It's over. It's over. She's dead to me, she's not the girl I knew anymore._

She had a husband and a daughter, somewhere, somewhere far away from him, and he sat in his empty apartment, hissing _fuck, fuck_ under his breath every time he thought of her, and every time he grew hard because he thought of her.

_It's been over for a long time. I just never knew._

He threw his fist into the arm of the couch, over and over, until his knuckles were raw and bleeding, until the color was high in his cheeks and he was gasping for breath, trembling at the tension in his muscles, and that night for the first time he wished he was dead, wished he could feel anything other than this.

But that was before the cold morning he had rushed out of the taxi to grab a spare toothbrush for his trip, and she had been standing there, her baby in the stroller, looking every bit as beautiful as she had ever been.

When he had said her name, his voice was like the clogged desperate gasp of a man just before he drowns.


	2. Chapter 2

He still wanted her. And he hated himself for it.

Where she touched him, he _burned._ He knew nothing else, wanted nothing else, and the shame and rage and grief and paralyzing fear only returned once she was gone.

He had slipped his business card into her pocket, forgetting that in their relationship she had always held the upper hand. She had been the one who left. No matter how much she had loved him (and in those quiet nights in the darkness of his room, once the latest girl had left him spent and staring up at the ceiling, he told himself over and over _she never loved me, she never loved me, she would never have done this if she had loved me_), he had always loved her more and she had never forgotten that.

_If she loved me she wouldn't be married with a child right now._

He left her in her father's yard, in the freezing rain, and that night he wanted to end it, because even though nothing had happened, even though he had told her that it all hurt too much, he knew that he would see her again. He had seen the expression in her eyes. And he knew that if he did see her again, he would do something he'd regret.

He'd had a lot of girlfriends, but none of them had been married. He wanted to keep it that way.

He was pulled that night driving ninety miles an hour down a slick icy road, and when the cop came to the window Ned rolled it down.

_I was trying to kill myself._

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

_Not fast enough._ "Not sure, sir."

"License and registration."

The cop was stern, and mentioned careless and reckless driving, excessive speed, even said he would have asked Ned to step out for a sobriety test if the roads hadn't been so miserable.

Ned drove home, obeying the speed limit the entire way, and when he arrived he called his usual service and ordered a brunette. She knocked on the door five minutes early and he already had the lights off, the sheets tossed back, the money spread on the bedside table and a raging erection that brought a glowing, feral smile to the brunette's lips.

"Couldn't wait for me, could you."

"Nope," Ned replied, and he almost believed it.

When she screamed under him, he didn't dare to look at her face, knowing the exact shade of disinterested apathy he would see there, and cursing the hollow ache of his chest.

_Make me forget. Just one moment, just one second, make me forget, make me forget her._

_Make me stop loving her._

She left when the sheets were still damp with their sweat, and he didn't stop her, but when he heard the door close behind her, he turned onto his side and curled his legs up and wished the cop had waited just a moment longer.

_We were over. This was over._

He thought he had been miserable before, in those months, not knowing. But it wasn't getting better, wasn't getting better, and every time he saw her he felt it burn like a brand against his heart. He had loved her too long to quit her cold, but he had never known he would feel this empty, that she would ever eviscerate him so completely.

He had loved her and when he saw her, he knew that he loved her still. He hated himself for it, hated her for it, but it didn't matter anymore.

All that was left to him was finding a way to bury it. Because if he ever wanted to see her again, ever wanted to breathe again, she could never know. He could never let her see it.

She could never know that with a single word from her, he would fall again, and this time he'd never be able to pick himself up from another broken heart.

\--

He thought he saw her father the day he went to court. A flash of salt-and-pepper hair, the span of broad shoulders, and his gaze shied away before he could be sure. He could feel the flush spreading on his neck, over his palms. Carson had been his attorney, once, a lifetime before. But then Carson had been the man Ned fully expected to, one day, become his father in law. Now there was no way that would ever happen.

_What if Carson tells her that he saw me here..._

Ned knew he looked good. Within thirty minutes at any bar he could pick up whatever girl he wanted, the best dressed, the most elaborately made up, or the most obvious whore. Nancy was the only one who had ever, who would ever be able to look into his eyes and see past the calm, past the lie, to the rage and pain and fear that had become his entire life after her. No one else saw it, not even Mike, and Ned had played with his beer, tossed a few more chips into the pot, instead of admitting it, admitting what had been choked in his throat when the cop had stopped him.

_I want to end all this. I want it to be over. I want to kill myself before she does it for me._

Ned carefully didn't look that way, in the direction of the person he had almost thought was Nancy's father, and after ten minutes in the bar across the street he found a woman who carried herself like an attorney. Her name was Kate and she had to be at least five years older than he, probably more; no rings on her fingers, nothing shy about her gaze.

Within an hour of his being at her apartment, they'd already had sex twice. He wasn't drunk, not yet, but he wanted to be, and she regarded him with dark, calm eyes, as he poured himself another glass of wine and held it warming in his palm. Her bedroom was stark. No frilly bedskirt, no pictures of grinning toddlers or distinguished men graying at the temple and beard. She hadn't even bothered with the excuse of a black slip, just led him to her bedroom, vanished behind a door, and returned a moment later, naked and proud, her chin held high, the deep pink of her nipples already tight before he touched them.

"You're married, aren't you."

Even though he knew his left ring finger to be bare, he glanced down at it anyway, almost expecting from the conviction in her voice to see a gold band there. "Not married," he chuckled. "What, are you?"

"Not for a long time."

He took a long sip of the wine, then offered her another glass, which she declined, her black hair tumbling down over the smooth cream of her shoulder.

"So why did you ask?"

She shrugged. "I'm not looking for anything complicated," she explained, then laughed as the wine warmed him down to his fingertips and his gaze gravitated to the slope of her bare breasts. "And I don't think you are, either."

He shook his head. "I'm not."

If he had had space to love anyone else, he would have loved Kate. She never asked him for anything more than he was willing to give, and the sex was incredible, but when he closed his eyes, when he slept between their release and the grey shade of the beginning of dawn, he saw Nancy's red-gold hair and the slow shy curve of her smile.

Kate slept with her hair a dark curtain over her face, and when he slipped silently from her bed in the mornings, he never kissed her goodbye. It ended the same way, a week before the reunion, on a Sunday morning. She made a soft noise in her sleep as he was tying his shoes, and he closed the door so very quietly, locked it behind him, and held the gentle weight of the key in his palm for a moment before he placed it on the floor and pushed it back under her door.

He never saw her again, not even in the years after, and he wondered one night with his wife asleep in his arms if he had lied to Kate that first time, without ever knowing it.

He didn't think of Kate again with anything more than a faint respect, but the first time he ate his wife out, he sent a silent thanks in her direction for the awkward Saturday afternoons spent dipping his tongue between her thighs and hearing her giggle in response before correcting him.

"No, no, there... there. Right there."

But his wife didn't giggle, that first time. His wife arched, her fingers tangling in his hair, her feet moving restless against the sheet, and she screamed when she came, the sound of it smothered to gasps by the pillow she had buried her face in.

"Good?"

She could only moan in response, her eyelashes fluttering, and then that same slow, shy smile that grew to a grin.

"Good," she said. "My turn."

\--

Now he had another key in his pocket.

Nancy looked miserable and pale from across the room, and he could feel it when she glanced in his direction, when she cut her eyes on seeing him with another girl. She was in black, and not just any black, that same black dress. If the pain hadn't done anything else, it had served to distill everything down, and when she was near he was nineteen again, and he would no more kill himself than kill her. He could breathe.

But the hard voice, the voice that had grown so loud the day he had known for sure that she was gone, that voice snarled.

_She wants to hurt you. She wants to hurt you. It's going to hurt so much, being this close to her is dangerous. You need to run. You need to get the fuck away from her and never look back. You need to hurt her like she hurt you. Drive her away. Make sure she never calls you again._

_Burn it all. Burn everything. Make sure there's nothing left to come back to, nothing that would ever bring you this close to it again. Burn her. Make her cry. Make her say that she hates you. And for God's sake don't touch her, don't dance with her again, and don't do anything stupid with that card in your pocket. Cheryl Ames would love to see the inside of a hotel room. That would do the trick. Take her. Take her up there, make sure Nancy sees it. Make sure she sees what she lost. Let her know she'll never have it again._

He had never hated her. He had wanted with every fiber of his being to hate her, he had hated Frank, he had hated himself for continuing to think about her and see her every time he fucked someone else, but nothing had worked, and now he stood in the middle of the dance floor, watching the pain in her eyes and _knowing._

When she shouldered through the crowd, heading for the coatroom, he was ready, and at the touch of his fingers on her elbow, the impossibly familiar movement of her in his arms when they danced, he knew. He wanted her, Frank be damned, those rings on her fingers be damned, all the time and rage and hatred be damned. He wanted her, and all those years before, even knowing, she had still wanted him.

He knew that he would never have her, not again, but for tonight maybe she would let him forget for a little while.

She took the card and his heart was pounding when he doubled back and took the elevator up to the room and looked at the bed, wondering what the hell he had done. He didn't want this, he didn't want her when she was promised and married to someone else, and her daughter... her little daughter, bright blue eyes and red-gold hair, and she would hate him for this when she was older, for breaking up the only parents she had ever known.

But it was Nancy's choice to come.

He was already hard but he didn't want to have sex, didn't want to

_(he wanted her screaming under him, he wanted to pin her to the bed and fuck her until she came, until they came together, he wanted to open his eyes and see the face that he had seen in his head since the first time, he wanted to see that same lazy smile, wanted to fall asleep in her arms and wake up to her in the morning)_

didn't want to scare her, so he went to the bathroom and jacked off quickly, listening for any faint noise, the light knock at the door or the slide of the keycard through the lock. But he finished uninterrupted and sighed in relief. He would be all right.

Now he just had to make it through the rest of the night.

His feet were bare on the carpet and his shirt and coat draped across the back of the chair when the lock clicked back, and at the hesitant hopeful look in her eyes he felt such relief, such love rise in him, but he couldn't resist the urge to tease her one last time.

"I thought we agreed to stay away from each other."

He knew they should have, he knew that; but she stepped into the room and even that nasty little voice was silent in the face of this. Whatever happened tonight, whatever happened between them, it wouldn't be real, but his mouth went dry when she nudged her wedding rings down her finger, never breaking their joined gaze.

And he was undone.


	3. Chapter 3

A week after Nancy left Frank, Ned told her everything.

She met him for lunch after her job interview, and he called in sick after and took her back to his place, where he found that her stockings ended just above her knees, garters stretched over her thighs, black lace thong and wicked red lips. He pushed her skirt up until it was bunched above her hips, and she planted her stilettos on the couch cushions, knees bent and spread wide.

"Not on the couch."

"Why? How many of those girls did you have here?" Her gaze was steady even as he unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off.

"It's not about that."

"Oh?" Her eyes fluttered shut as he pushed the cup of her bra down, until her right breast was loose, her nipple pink and tight. She reached up and unbuttoned his pants, yanked the zipper down, sighing as he traced his thumb over her breast.

"Yeah. I'm about to explode. Come on."

She left the stilettos on, the stockings, the garter, the thong, the bra, although by the time they reached his bed both her breasts were loose above it. He hooked his thumb around the thong and dragged it to the side, then thumbed her clit, staring at the place where the stocking stretched tight over her knee.

"Ned..."

"Hmm?" He slipped his fingers down, deeper between her thighs, and she groaned, tilting her head back.

"God, I want to feel you now, now," she demanded, and when he moved over her she wrapped her legs around him, the smooth hard leather at the heels of her stilettos pressing against his back. He leaned down until they were nose to nose, and she gasped, her eyes fluttering shut when he pressed his cock inside her.

"Open your eyes."

She obeyed him, searching his gaze while he buried his hand in her hair, and he was slow at first, another inch deeper with every thrust, until she was shaking and begging him for it. He found her breast with his mouth and traced his teeth against her nipple.

"He never made you come," he gasped into her skin, and when he pulled back she nodded, forcing her eyes open again.

"Only you," she moaned. "I love you so much, oh God..."

Suddenly his heart was pounding. "Tell me," he whispered, and licked his lips, and he was so deep between her thighs that their hips were flush and her mouth had fallen open, her face twisted in the twinned pleasure and pain of it, and he could feel her heartbeat against his cock. "Tell me I'm the only one you'll ever love," he whispered.

"I love you," she gasped. "I've always loved you, I've always wanted you, you were the only one..."

She slid her arms up around his shoulders and pulled him down to her, and he kissed her, feeling her groan against his mouth as he pulled back from her again.

"Never leave me again," he whispered when she came.

After, he unhooked her bra and pulled it off, tossing it over the side of the bed. She regarded him lazily, smiling when his palms cupped her breasts.

"I don't know how many girls I had."

"On the couch?"

He shrugged. "On the couch, in bed, at Omega Chi..."

Her face shuttered slightly, and he felt a small rise of pleasure when he saw that he had hurt her.

"I was trying to make myself forget about you."

"Did you?" she asked, searching his eyes, her voice utterly serious.

"No," he whispered, and traced the ball of his thumb over her nipple. Her lower lip was full as it dropped open, and he leaned down to take it into his mouth, to kiss her. "God, how could I ever forget you."

"Again," she whispered, pleading, her hips rising up to meet his, and this time he closed his eyes and buried his face against the side of her neck, his cries matching hers, and the rhythm was perfect, fucking perfect, the angle of her, the slick hot press of her against the tip of his cock, and when he came they were one in a way he had never known with anyone else, never before her, never without her.

He didn't move, didn't pull away from her after, and she ran her hands through his hair, pressed her mouth against his cheek and kissed him softly.

"They don't matter anymore," she whispered.

"No," he said against her skin, and was horrified to find that his eyes were pricking with tears, his throat thick with them, his voice hoarse. "You were the only one who ever mattered."

When her voice came it was slow, thick with those same tears.

"You were the only one who ever mattered to me."

When they pulled apart she pushed herself to her feet and stood facing him as she took her clothes off, slowly, the stilettos one by one, loosing the garters and rolling the stockings down her smooth legs, unhooking the garter belt and letting it drop to the floor. He had his head propped up on his hand, his elbow bent and pressed into the pillow, his gaze rapt as she stepped out of her thong and then slipped back into bed with him, pulling herself against his warmth.

"I want to make you come more than he did."

She laughed against his neck, her leg bending, folding her inner thigh against his hip as he slipped his arms around her. "Oh, Ned, you already have."

"I want to have sex with you more times than he did."

He was smiling and she was smiling too, running her hand through his hair. "Today? I think we'll need a little more time. Maybe a week or two."

He trailed his hand down and stroked her side, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest, and closed his eyes. Her breath against his neck. _Peace._

"I want to have sex with you more times than you had without me."

He opened his eyes, forcing himself to find any condemnation in her gaze, but she only stared openly back at him, her eyes still damp.

"That'll take a little more time," he said, smiling, and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "More than a couple of weeks, and that's even if we shut ourselves in here with a hot plate and a case of coffee and don't do anything else."

She smiled back at him, a moment later, and buried her face against his shoulder, and he could barely make out what she whispered into his skin.

_We have the rest of our lives._

Even now, remembering it, remembering the others, felt like a dream, a meaningless sickening nightmare. Not a single one of them had touched him this way, had made him feel this way.

She pulled back again, but this time kept her gaze down, her eyes not meeting his. "I know," she said softly, and he could feel the sudden jump of her pulse. "I know I'm not as... experienced... as them..."

He brushed her hair away from her ear and leaned down to press his mouth against it, smiling when she shivered against him. "That doesn't matter to me," he whispered, cupping her breast in his hand, and when she gasped in a breath her nipple moved against his palm.

"But... do you... am I..."

He stroked her breast and her thigh moved against his hip, and he closed his eyes, feeling the heat between her legs so close to his again. Then he tilted her chin up, forcing himself to ask before he was past the point of no return, before he was lost in the impossible intoxication of her embrace.

"Nan, what is it, baby."

She took in a breath and then forced it out, hurriedly. "I'm not as good as them, am I, you just wanted to make me feel better... I mean, he never wanted to try anything new, and you... you are so good, and I--"

He rolled over and pinned her to the bed underneath him, his forehead against hers, so close that her eyes were a deep blue blur as they searched his. "I have had the best sex of my life with you, I told you that," he said slowly, trying to keep himself from concentrating too much on the way her legs fell apart under his, the smooth warmth of her thighs against his hips. "Because I didn't love them, I never loved them, and every single time," he sucked in a breath, and his voice was hoarse, rough, again, "every single time I only wanted you."

"That can't be true," she whispered, and her eyes were gleaming, but he could hear it in her voice.

"It is," he promised. "It's true. And I know that it probably wasn't like that for you..."

She closed her eyes, and when she spoke her voice was shaking.

"It felt like I was betraying you."

"I thought you were lost to me," he whispered, into her neck, the silk strands of her hair against his lips. "I thought I would never be happy again, because you would never be mine again."

She smiled. "I always was," she whispered. "I hated the thought of you with anyone else..."

He gave in to the pounding insistence of his heartbeat in his head, the ache of his cock, and slipped between her thighs again, watching her arch, the way her mouth opened as her eyes fluttered closed. "I'll never be with anyone else," he breathed as her fingers tangled in his hair. "You were the last, you were the only one..."

She groaned at his first thrust. "And you never... you never felt them like this, never loved them like this..."

He shook his head as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him tight to her. "I can feel you," he whispered. "I never wanted anyone the way I wanted you."

She came and with the quick violence of her first spasm he cried out, her hips still thrusting up to meet his. He held out, held himself steady and then let himself come, rough between her thighs.

"I love you more," she whispered against his forehead when he collapsed to her, their skin slick with sweat. She pressed her mouth in a soft kiss against the crown of his head. "I love you more than any of them ever did."

He smiled. "And I love you," he murmured against her breast.

She stroked his hair. "I want to fuck you until you forget their names, forget what they ever looked like," she whispered fiercely. "Only me..."

_I already have._ He pulled back and trailed kisses over her breast, over her neck, to the sweet warmth of her mouth.

"We have the rest of our lives," he whispered. "But I doubt it'll take that long."


	4. Chapter 4

When Ned woke, gasping, he rolled over and saw his wife on the other side of the bed. She stirred, and he knew that if he said her name that she would wake, but he couldn't do it.

He was shaking, cold sweat and aching lungs.

He rolled out of bed gently and watched her silently, until he was sure she was on her way back to sleep. He found a t-shirt and a pair of beat-up sneakers she didn't let him wear even to the gym anymore, and headed out to the garage, careful to make as little noise as he possibly could.

Then he was standing in the middle of the concrete floor, under the bare bulb, his feet spread shoulder's-width apart, breathing hard.

_—and I'm sorry, Ned, but—_

He cried out in rage and flew at the punching bag from across the room, the gloves hard against his knuckles.

He had never hit Nancy, never struck her in anger, never struck their children. When he felt like he was going to explode, when he wanted to kill someone, he came out here and the punching bag bore the brunt of his anger.

He hadn't had a dream like that in a long time.

_Nightmare. Nightmare._

He let out a frustrated roar, his breathing already labored, as he slammed his fists into the bag again, again, again. He could still see her with her hand resting over the swell of her belly, and it was all ridiculous because after their second daughter was born, they had decided that she would be their last, and she loved him, she loved their life and their house on the edge of the lake and their children.

She loved him. She loved him. Since the day she had left Frank Hardy, he had never doubted it.

He just couldn't shake the image, and it made him tremble with rage, made him feel sick.

"Fuck," he finally hissed, catching the bag on the downswing, standing in the middle of their garage floor with his limbs still jumping from the tension.

He had to wait until he wasn't breathing in harsh gasps before he went inside again. Sam had fallen asleep with the desk lamp on, and he flipped it off, watching her turn in her sleep. Ned had to pick his way around the train set Cole had assembled, but his son was resting peacefully, his hand splayed on the pillow beside his cheek. Jessie was turning in her toddler bed, a white bear dressed in a pink tutu clutched to her chest.

Ned showered briefly, to wash the sweat away, and made sure their bedroom door was locked before he slid back into bed naked, watching her stir in response.

"You okay?" she murmured, her voice thick with sleep, as she turned her face toward his and blinked slowly.

He nodded, then slid close to her, tracing his palm down her side, plucking at the band of her panties with his fingertips. "I'm okay."

After a moment she raised her hips so he could pull them off, then sat up and tugged her shirt over her head, leaving her naked in the dark. He moved toward her and she stopped him with a palm against his cheek.

"Something's wrong."

He shook his head. "Bad dream," he mumbled, pushing her down, and she opened her legs to him willingly, studying his face. He skimmed his palms over her breasts and she arched, her nipples hardening, before he traced them down her sides, resting against her hips.

"What kind of bad dream."

He shrugged. "You were," he began, and then his stomach tightened and his throat closed and he couldn't. He slipped his thumbs between her thighs and urged her flesh to open beneath his touch, but stopped there, leaning down to brush his mouth over her cheek.

She sighed and ran her hand over his hair. "Something bad," she murmured. "About me." She made a soft noise, shifting when his thumb slid up half an inch.

He shook his head. "It's okay," he whispered. "It wasn't true."

"What happened," she whispered, her hips tilting back. "You can tell me, it wasn't true..."

He dipped his fingers between her thighs and found her wet, traced up until he found her clit and she arched hard, her mouth falling open. He closed his eyes and slid inside her and he heard her groan, felt her fingers trail down his arm as her hand fell limply back to the sheets. She moaned his name, loud as breath, then pushed herself up on her elbows, her nipple shining, as he doubled his knees under her and she pulled herself up to sit in his lap, until their hips were flush against each other and she was rocking against him, her hair brushing over his shoulder with his every answering thrust.

"Ned," she murmured, then gasped, her teeth against his neck, his fingers digging into her back. He kissed her and they stopped at the apex of one particularly hard thrust, motionless, before she began to tremble. When she came he buried his face against her breasts as he followed, and he finally felt whole.

"You were pregnant and you were leaving me," he whispered when they were still shaking in each other's arms.

"You know that would never happen."

He nodded. "I know," he sighed. "I know."

She shifted and he almost screamed. "Ned, you know I love you."

"I know," he whispered. "I guess it's just because... sometimes when I'm asleep, I forget that it's over."

She ran her fingertips down his cheek. "It's over...?"

He pulled back a little so he could look into her face, and smiled a little, but his heart still ached, just a little. Just a little.

"Having to pretend I don't love you."

She smiled and kissed him, her hips moving against his, and this time he did groan against her mouth.

"That is over," she whispered. "That's all over. Unless we go undercover and you play the sexy jealous boyfriend, and then fuck me in the backseat of a taxi."

He chuckled. "You think we're getting too old for that kind of thing?"

"Never," she said, and then kissed him again, her eyes growing damp with tears.

"I've already lost you once. I'm never letting you go again."

When they parted and lay facing each other across the pillows, she slid to him, to lie naked pressed against the length of his body, and nestled her face against his chest.

He ran his hand over her hair and felt her breathe against him, and whispered those same words against the crown of her head, the ones that had killed him every minute of every day they had been apart, and felt her pull him tight to her in response, his knee between the press of her thighs and her answering gasp in the dark.

"You're the only one I'll ever love."

He touched his rings on her fingers, then laced his own between hers, and felt her smile suddenly, the quick quirk of her lips against his chest.

"Have you forgotten their names?"

"Whose names?" he asked after a moment, playing along.

"The other girls," she said, her voice low, seductive. "The ones you didn't love."

"Oh," he said suddenly. "Those. Baby, I forgot all that the day you gave me that first blow job."

She giggled. "Oh, come on. I'm not that good."

"You are _perfect_," he insisted, grinning, pride flushing in his belly as she giggled again, the sound one of pure delight. He tickled her and she shrieked into the pillow, her legs writhing against the sheets as she tried to squirm out of his grasp. She sprang up without warning and tackled him, trying to pin his wrists to the pillow beside his head, smothering her giggles whenever he freed himself. When he reversed and pinned her down instead, she cried softly for truce, her eyes shining, and he relented.

"Perfect," he said again.

She took his hand and cupped it against the warmth between her legs, then shook her head. "You are."

He smiled, then stroked her hair back from her flushed face. "I almost never think about it anymore," he whispered. "I spent the entire time wanting you, loving you, and now I have you back, back where you belong..."

She turned her face and pressed a kiss into his palm. "It was never right, without you," she whispered. "It was never like this without you."

He rolled over onto his side and pulled her with him, and he was almost asleep when he felt her eyelashes flutter against his throat, heard her groan.

"We can't sleep like this."

He found her breast blindly in the dark and traced his thumb over her nipple, smiling lazily. "Sure we can," he mumbled, following with his mouth.

She let him flick his tongue against her flesh for a moment before she halfheartedly pushed him away. "We can't," she groaned. "You locked the door, didn't you... What if Jessie has a nightmare?"

He nodded, sighing, and with one last playful duck against her breast, another gentle shove against his shoulder, he pushed himself out of bed, standing naked, waiting until she had slipped her panties back on, pulled her shirt back over her head. He found a clean pair of boxers and then flipped the lock on their doorknob before diving back into bed with her.

She was already asleep and he was nearly there when his breath caught in his throat, and suddenly he remembered the dream he had dreamt so long ago, over ten years ago, and how badly he had wanted it to be true. The sound of her laughter and the way her hair shone, red against the pale of her cheek as she told him that everything he had feared, everything that had torn him apart inside, it was all a lie, and they would be fine again.

_Never do that to me again._

She moved against him in her sleep, and his arms tightened around her, and his nightmare faded to nothing when she nestled against his chest.

He had wanted so badly for that dream to be true, and now she was in his arms, her daughter was theirs, and it was. It finally was.

"Go to sleep," she mumbled against his chest, her hand fumbling for his hair. "I can hear you thinking."

He chuckled. "No you can't," he protested, pressing a kiss against her forehead. "Besides, I was only thinking about you."

She smiled. "You don't have to think about me," she murmured. "I'm right here."

"Yeah," he whispered.

_You finally are._


End file.
